A 2Mbps E1 sa Smart would cost between $1,500 to $2,000. Globe is offering it a bit cheaper — around $900 to $1,300 per month.

In a 2008 thread on Istorya.net, a 2Mbps leased line with Globe costs Php15,000 per month which also gives you 6 static public IPs.

At TipidPC, a 256Kbps leased line with Globe costs about Php7,000+ a month.

The benefit with leased line is that you get 99.99% uptime and a CIR or committed internet rate (some sort of a guaranteed minimum bandwidth speed). When these guarantees are not met, the ISP gives back rebates to the customer.

These type of packages, though not really that fast, are usually used for mission critical businesses where uptime and consistency are of utmost importance. That’s the reason why there’s a huge difference in guarantees with a 2Mbps residential line and a 2Mbps leased line.

43 Responses to “What’s the cost of a true guaranteed speed?”

sandali lang, why is article writer and everyone here mixing the costings of a leased line and residential subscriptions?

totally different ang leased lines as they are in speeds of MegaBytes. emphasis on “Bytes”. 1 Byte is equal to 8 bits. Hence it is faster. Denoted using the subscript KB as in capital KB.

residential lines on the other hand are MegaBits. this time emphasis on “Bits”. Noted using the subscript Kb with a small b.

the problem has nothing to do with guaranteed speed. telcos are selling us misleading products. telco provider marketeers are using the wrong terms, hence we expect more but we get less. Megabits is definitely slower than Megabytes and Megabits is what is provided to residential subscribers and not Megabytes as they advertise.

I enjoy your explanations as I am such a novice. We are located in a remote part of southern Leyte, Padre Burgos. We have a Globe 3G system up, but its access to customers is restricted by the mountains. I am wondering if it makes sense to set up aerials on the mountain top, and then shoot the signal to users down below…making a 25km network. I think they sell basic service for 999p per month. We also have a provider who has captured a dsl signal and is using a reflection system to bring the signal in to the community, at the same price as the 3G….I would appreciate any comments or advice you might be willing to offer in sorting this out. Salamat, Clay

“Internet connection speeds are expressed in terms of data transfer rates in both directions (uploading and downloading), as bits or bytes per second. Abbreviations are unfortunately not standardized, making it easy for customers or potential clients to confuse a bit and a byte when trying to determine bang for the buck. For example, a speed of â€œ750 kbpsâ€ might be misinterpreted by a customer as meaning 750 kilobytes per second â€“ or 8x faster than what the provider means.”

of course, if i am running a business, that’s another story. Enterprise situations obviously require different setup and requirement, and the business would have to cover to maintain the cost of guaranteed internet speed.

Apparently, you’re the one who’s confused. You’re basically stating that the difference between a leased line and a residential line is because of misleading terms, and that leased lines are generally faster because they are measured in MBps instead of Mbps?

You’re missing the point of the article. The difference why leased lines are faster than their residential counterparts – ke bits per second or bytes per second ang measurement na ginamit – e dahil dedicated line sya. Walang kaagaw, compared to residential lines where bandwidth is shared amongst several subscribers.

Reply to Wendal’s comment:
I don’t get you, $40 is for 3G 4GB plan. $80 for 6GB (sorry for my mistake, it was indeed 6GB so additional 2 DVD rips for AT&T guys) DSL + phone bundle. I’m not sure if these rates stay the same for every state. But other than that, I have no idea on a plan that costs only $50 (u-verse plan costs $100, but I have no idea on its monthly allowance).

there are free hotspots here in the states but, hell, who would like to piggyback on these? Those who want their security breached? Not me. And of course, nothing beats having a personal connection at home. DUH!

Reply to Paul’s comment:
sorry for hi jacking this post, I posted the same comment on the appropriate post but I would just like to up the comment to the blogger.

For Philippines to prosper we need to stop looking at US as an example because they are anything but a good example. In fact they are perfect example of what NOT to do – both when it comes to internet access and celluar access.

Take Bredbands Bolaget (The Broadband Company) – they offer 100Mbit internet with 60Mbit minimum (anything above depends how much you are using of TV, VOIP etc. that runs over the network also) – at a price even Filipinos could afford – 1675 peso pr. month.

Some will say – that is Europe we cant do that in Asia, well that isn’t true, you can do that in South Korea, Japan, China or Singapore easily.

Fact is that the infrastructure at PLDT (and in parts Globe) is ready for ADSL2+ which would bring the average DSL connection in Philippines to European standards – where 1500 peso is 20Mbit completely unmetered (no up or download limits).

Here is the but – they don’t wan’t to invest in backbone connections and as such they keep the connections unnaturally low to avoid overselling their capacity too much.

The Philippines are PERFECTLY situated to be the Asian hub for communications, but unfortunately for the Philippine people there is nobody willing to listen to this.

If the islands here were properly interconnected with much more capacity than at current, and then new deepsea cables were made to all our neighbours, we would be the center of S.E.A. communications and create a huge new sector (proper hosting services for all of Asia, central hubs for all the worldwide backbone suppliers etc.) with loads of new jobs here in Phillippines.

It’s all PLDTs fault for not do in bi-latteral peering with anyone else in Philippines.

All other ISPs you can reach without your packets leaving the country – with PLDT they go to Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan or Japan before reaching PLDT or vice versa.

An example – PacNet (biggest backbone provider in south east asia) is in the business of selling international bandwidth. They have huge pipes going in/out of Philippines. Now they sell bandwidth to almost all ISPs in Philippines including PLDT, but when they asked PLDT for bi-latteral peering PLDT told PacNet that, that was only possible if PacNet bought bandwidth from PLDT……

So PacNet sells bandwidth to PLDT and then tries to sell the same bandwidth back to PacNet at many many many times the price.

PLDT is the failure of IT in Philippines, if the government wasn’t in their pocket they would do 2 thing:

1) Telcos are limited to binding a customer (phone or internet/broadband) for a maximum of six months. (any country that has enforced this has seen prices plummit due to increased competition)

2) All ISPs must connect bi-latteral to a free neutral IX run by the goverment – at minimum X Kbit pr. customer.

There you go – these two simple things in place and Philippines is in top5 of internet in SEA within 5 years.

Madali lang naman eh… Use PLDT for local loops and the like. Never use them for Internet.

But that is a dream. PLDT has about 50+GBPs upstream. The next rival probably has 30 or so gbps. Companies (80% source of ISPs revenues) will still choose PLDT due to upstream capability and more importantly their local reach to far flung provinces.

The only company that has the potential to bring them down is Globe. Unfortunately for us, Globe has become an a$$hole more than PLDT. Just imagine, they got banned in our company!

Actually Globe is a part of the consortium of companies in SEA that have already put in place the worlds largest undersea cable in terms of capacity.

17 Terabits

It is scheduled to go operational in Q2 2012 and will connect Philippines to Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong with more capacity than all other undersea cables going into Philippines presently, COMBINED.